Stanford Briefings

Case Study: PS Business Parks

Glendale, California

A Kantola customer since 2014

PS Business Parks, a publicly traded full-service real estate company, owns and operates nearly 30 million rentable square feet of commercial space across 8 states. Originally formed as a division of Public Storage, Inc. in 1986, PS Business Parks is now an independent leader in ’flex’ properties, which combine office space and light manufacturing, and appeal to small and medium-sized companies located in urban centers.

Learning to Grow

As PS Business Parks has continued to grow, so too have their training needs. Six months ago, Paul Plamondon was hired as Manager of Learning and Development, a newly created position. “The concept was to have one person be responsible for and to provide learning and development,” Paul explains, “and that’s me.” Paul considered using video or interactive training from the start for the company’s sexual harassment prevention training, and decided to go with self-paced online training. “Hiring a trainer for this project was just unfeasible. E-learning was the best choice for us, where I could manage the training in multiple locations at once.”

Fast and Flexible

Though not all of their managers are located in California, Paul chose to use the 2-hour training course across all of their locations. “We believe in a harassment-free workplace, and one way to make sure that happens is to make sure everyone is on board,” says Paul. Using Kantola’s LMS, Paul was able to launch the training on time and has been tracking his learners’ progress: “I gave them two months, and six weeks in, we’re 98% complete.”